Key Takeaways Periodic audits provide a point-in-time assessment, but they cannot demonstrate whether controls remain effective between audit cycles. Qualys platform data shows 10.5 billion configuration findings across customer environments but only 1.6% represent meaningful exposure and under 1% are prioritized, business-critical findings. Verizon’s 2026 DBIR found the median time to resolve weak passwords and misconfigured permissions is about 8 months. Across 1 billion misconfiguration…
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. There’s been a lot of talk recently about slowing down the pace of AI development. And yes, there are legitimate moral, ethical, geopolitical, and safety concerns with the use of AI. It’s not clear yet whether an AI slowdown could happen, let alone whether it should (hat tip to Dr. Ian Malcolm). I admit, I’m not really qualified to opine on the impacts unrestricted AI might have on bioterrorism, the balance of international power,…
The defining development of the period came not from attackers but from the AI labs themselves, whose models broke out of controlled evaluations and reached real systems. In the wild, the criminal and state use of AI continued to mature along the lines tracked in earlier editions: models now act as attack operators, an underground market supplies the access, and AI systems have themselves become a target. The substantial distance between what the strongest models demonstrated under evaluation…
Compared with the same period last year, ransomware incidents in Japan increased slightly by approximately 4.7%, indicating that ransomware continues to pose a significant threat.In Japan, The Gentlemen was the most active ransomware group in the first half of 2026.Attackers continue to primarily target small- and medium-sized enterprises, with organizations capitalized at less than JPY 1 billion accounting for approximately 80% of the total — an increase of around 13% from the previous year…
The ransom itself can be only a fraction of the total cost of a ransomware attack, with downtime, recovery, remediation, and legal obligations adding millions to the bill. Datto explains how a mature BCDR strategy can reduce downtime and provide a faster, more predictable path to recovery. [...]
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned security teams that ransomware gangs have now joined ongoing attacks exploiting a critical VMware vCenter vulnerability patched in July. [...]
Attackers exploit Volume Shadow Copy for credential theft and ransomware defense evasion. See how Huntress spots the difference from routine IT activity.
Cisco heeft kwetsbaarheden verholpen in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. De kwetsbaarheid met kenmerk CVE-2026-20079 bevindt zich in de webinterface van Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center. Een ongeauthenticeerde externe kwaadwillende kan de authenticatiecontroles omzeilen door een onjuist systeemproces dat bij het opstarten is aangemaakt te misbruiken. De kwaadwillende kan deze kwetsbaarheid misbruiken door speciaal geprepareerde HTTP-verzoeken naar een getroffen apparaat te sturen…
A Ukrainian national was sentenced to four years in a U.S. prison for his role in the notorious Conti ransomware operation, which targeted more than 1,000 victims worldwide before shutting down in 2022.
A new Android malware strain called Mantax Otax combines ransomware and spyware capabilities to encrypt files, steal sensitive data, and spam and harass victims. [...]
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Ask anybody in this industry what the work does to the health of the people who do it and you get one word back: burnout. It's a fine word, in and of itself. It’s easy to reach for, understandable to everyone… and it's the wrong one, most of the time. So, story time. Last year I gave an interview with the amazing Hazel Burton about VPNFilter, and my run-in with burnout. I was a manager during that time, and it took a toll on me and…
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has confirmed that ransomware gangs are also exploiting a critical WatchGuard Firebox firewall vulnerability, which it flagged as actively exploited in December. [...]
Healthcare technology company Veradigm disclosed a data breach after a cybersecurity incident at one of its third-party vendors exposed patients' personal data. [...]
Threat actors are exploiting GTA6 hype with fake leaked downloads spread via SEO poisoning, packed with RATs, infostealers, and wiper ransomware. Here’s what Huntress found.
A municipal utility in Bavaria is recovering from a cyberattack that encrypted its internal IT systems but did not affect water and electricity services.
Group-IB's 2026 data shows ransomware accelerating across APAC. See where response plans fail, and the 5-pillar framework built to hold under pressure.
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 7th Setpember, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin. TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES Thomson Reuters, a global information and technology company, has disclosed a breach of its C-Track court case-management platform affecting courts across 11 US states and Canada. An unauthorized party obtained C-Track files containing court records, including names and other personal information. Hit, a major Slovenian gambling and tourism…
Another trove of data from Berlin's government has appeared online, authorities said. Germany's information security agency separately warned about the Rhysida cybercrime group.
Introduction We continue tracking the activity of Toy Ghouls (also known as Bearlyfy, Laboo.boo, and Feral Wolf), a financially motivated group that has been targeting Russian organizations since 2025. The attackers initially relied exclusively on tools pulled from public GitHub repositories along with leaked Babuk and LockBit ransomware builders, later shifting to their own custom ransomware, GenieLocker. In early July 2026, we observed the group using a custom backdoor for the first time. We…
A Nemzetbiztonsági Szakszolgálat Nemzeti Kiberbiztonsági Intézet (NBSZ NKI) riasztást ad ki Magyarország Ügyészségének nevével és arculati elemeivel visszaélő, zsarolóvírus fertőzéshez vezető adathalász üzenetekről. A bejelentések alapján a támadók hamis, hivatalos megkeresés látszatát keltő leveleket küldenek, amelyekben ügyészségi alkalmazottak nevével élnek vissza. A kampány célja az, hogy a felhasználó a levélben szereplő hivatkozásra kattintson, majd a […]
The group, which calls itself VantaCore, has targeted at least seven known victims, Russian cybersecurity firm F6 said in a report published this week.
Ransomware resilience requires more than backups or endpoint detection alone. Acronis outlines six capabilities MSPs should test across client environments, from reducing exposure and detecting attacks to preserving recovery points and restoring operations quickly. [...]
Analysis of 15 intrusions revealed tradecraft used by GOLD SHERWOOD affiliatesCategories: Threat ResearchTags: ransomware as a service, The Gentlemen, GOLD SHERWOOD, Ransomware
Berlin's city administration has confirmed that cybercriminals are attempting to extort the city after the Rhysida ransomware gang listed it on their data leak site. [...]
Protect your Australia- and New Zealand-based retail business from cyber threats. Learn five key decisions to secure identities, manage dependencies and ensure trading continuity against ransomware
A joint Tenable-SentinelOne analysis of 93 CVE-actor attribution pairs reveals that both state-sponsored actors and cybercriminals independently converge on the same edge infrastructure. Special thanks to SentinelOne® Incident Readiness & Response for their contributions to this publication.It is the shared attack surface where state-sponsored threat actors and financially motivated criminal groups independently converge — not the province of a single adversary category, and not exclusively a…
Research by: Jaromír Hořejší (@JaromirHorejsi) Key points StopAndProtect is a newly identified operation that combines file encryption with data theft. The criminals abuse thousands of hacked WordPress websites as their infrastructure – using them to spread the malware, control infected machines, and store stolen documents, screenshots, and activity logs (records created by malware to track its actions, progress, or status during execution). Operational security (OPSEC) failures by the…
You can’t patch everything. So what do you fix first? Findings in Q2 2026 have changed traditional answers.The latest Quarterly Threat Landscape Report from Rapid7 Labs shows vulnerability disclosures still surging while attackers use automation and AI-assisted tooling to compress the time between disclosure and exploitation. The gap that patch cycles were built to fill is closing. Speed and volume are overwhelming security teams that have relied on traditional patch cycles and reactive…
Learn how Tenable One Cloud Exposure helps you unmask the sophisticated tactics of cybercrime group Storm-0501, which carries out Azure-based cloud ransomware campaigns. Tenable One Cloud Exposure uses AI-powered threat stories to expose Storm-0501 TTPs, backed by precision-engineered threat detection alerts.Key takeawaysStorm-0501 demonstrates that cloud-first ransomware groups have shifted from simple endpoint encryption to the total hijacking of cloud tenants.Storm-0501 systematically…
Upozorňujeme na dvojici zranitelností ve WordPress Core označovaných jako wp2shell (CVE-2026-63030 a CVE-2026-60137), které mohou při kombinovaném zneužití vést ke vzdálenému spuštění kódu (RCE) bez nutnosti přihlášení.
For the past year, the ransomware conversation has centered on concentration: a handful of dominant RaaS operations controlling most of the damage, and a shrinking pool of active groups fighting over the same territory. The State of Ransomware Q2 2026 report from Check Point Research shows that picture starting to shift. The leaders are still winning, but the road to joining them has gotten a great deal shorter. Key observed findings The ecosystem stayed concentrated even as its tail widened…
In this article Pre-encryptionEncryptionPost-encryptionDefending against DeadLock ransomwareIndicators of compromise Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracks DeadLock ransomware as an emerging financially motivated operation distinguished by its use of decentralized infrastructure to support victim communications and data leak operations. Its recovery ecosystem combines the Session messaging network with blockchain-backed services that store and deliver resources used throughout the extortion…
In this article What is device isolation?Case study: QNETAttack chain overviewMITRE ATT&CK techniques observedReferencesLearn more Microsoft Defender’s attack disruption now includes device isolation, a new response action that extends autonomous protection directly to compromised endpoints. At QNET, an attacker initiated a multi-stage attack using a legitimate Windows tool on a compromised endpoint to retrieve a malicious remote payload–a classic living-off-the-land (LOL) technique that often…
Have you ever read the Talos IR Quarterly Trends report and wondered, “How did that phishing or ransomware campaign actually play out? When was Talos IR contacted, how did they contain it, and how did they remediate the environment?" You’re in luck. Next Tuesday, August 11, Cisco Talos Incident Responders will be hosting an exclusive, unrecorded 30-minute webinar to review the most high-impact incidents our customers faced in Q2 2026. This isn’t a rehashing of the report itself, but a candid…
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. For my fianceé’s 30th birthday, I took her on a weekend trip to Shenandoah National Park – a favorite of ours since we went to a wedding there several years back. We’ve done several incredible hikes over the years, but one in particular had always loomed over my head: Old Rag, a 9.3 mile circuit hike that’s largely considered the most difficult in Virginia. I've always been warned that at the beginning and end, you hate Old Rag.…
For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 27th July, please download our Threat Intelligence Bulletin. TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES Nichirei, a Japan-based frozen-food supplier and logistics company, has experienced a ransomware attack that disrupted shipping operations and affected approximately 5,000 customers. KFC Japan warned of possible shortages. Nichirei confirmed personal data theft, while the RansomHouse group claimed responsibility and published a subset of the stolen…
An AI agent has run a ransomware intrusion on its own for the first time, from break-in to data destruction. The autonomous attacks TrendAI™ Research predicted are beginning to arrive, and defending against them shifts from blocking known indicators to detecting behavior.
The ransomware economy has been rewired. Meet the eight ransomware groups driving the shift, from affiliate breakaways to AI-assisted attacks based on Group-IB Threat Intelligence.
Cisco Talos has discovered a new Rust-based remote access trojan (RAT) we call “msaRAT” attributed to the Chaos ransomware group. The name is derived from the binding names found in the binary: “msaOpen,” “msaClose,” “msaError,” and “msaMessage”.msaRAT is implemented using the Tokio asynchronous runtime, with primary capabilities of browser-leveraged remote code execution and covert tunneling to establish command-and-control (C2) communications.This RAT never touches the network directly — it…
Key Takeaways This case was first reported to customers in a threat brief released in July 2025 and in a public flash alert in August 2025 in partnership with Swisscom B2B CSIRT, which observed another intrusion tied to the same campaign. This report contains data from both intrusions. We plan to release a DFIR Labs […] The post From Bing Search to Ransomware: Bumblebee and AdaptixC2 Deliver Akira appeared first on The DFIR Report.
The EtherRAT malware family was first reported by Sysdig back in December 2025. At that time, the initial access vector was exploitation of CVE-2025-55182 (React2Shell) targeting Linux servers. In March 2026, a Windows variant campaign was reported by Atos, with their investigation showing evidence of activity going back to the previous December. In April, we […] The post Flash Alert: EtherRat and TukTuk C2 End in The Gentleman Ransomware appeared first on The DFIR Report.
Get an insider look at how the Huntress SOC stopped an unsecured VPN based ransomware attack. Learn why your business needs more than just software to stay secure.